“I… surrender…” Gaius said, barely able to get the words out. He had about a dozen knights and minor Lords there with him to formally surrender as well, since, despite Gaius being officially in charge, it was a noble army and not a professional Legion—nobles still commanded their own private forces and Gaius didn’t have as much authority to command those knights to stand down as his position would imply.

“I accept your surrender,” Leon said. He, too, had a posse of knights with him, including the Legate of the 7th Legion. They were all more than a little nervous—as were those representing Octavius’ forces, for that matter—but once the words were said, there was no more fighting.

It had been more than a little startling for everyone when Gaius raised the white flag, and it didn’t immediately make every single knight and man-at-arms throw down their weapons. As the 7th Legion closed in with the back of their column, a force of two hundred knights led by Tanicus Nummius either didn’t hear about Gaius’ surrender or didn’t care about it—probably the latter, given Tanicus and Gaius’ disagreements—for they resisted and were killed almost to a man. Only about a tenth of their number was still breathing by the time of this meeting and Gaius’ formal surrender, and Baron Tanicus was not among them.

Fortunately, there had been no one else who defied Gaius’ orders, and the rest of the army surrendered without too much hassle.

For his part, Gaius was more than a little humiliated, but that feeling paled in comparison to the relief he felt at no longer having to carry out Octavius’ orders. This feeling of relief was also mixed with a slight feeling of dread at what he would face when he inevitably returned to the capital, whether that was days or years from now, but for the moment, he found himself relaxing more than he had in a good long while.

He didn’t like Leon, but the Valeman was infinitely preferable to Octavius’ leadership. Perhaps this was why Gaius didn’t even blink at Leon being the one to accept the surrender. Even with Valeria there to witness it, Gaius formally gave up his command with a glad heart and turned himself over to Leon and the 7th Legion.

—

“What are you going to do with them?” Leon asked as he, the Legate of the 7th Legion, and his small retinue walked back to the hastily-erected command tent. It had only been a few hours since the 7th Legion arrived and Gaius first raised the white flag, but already the Legion had set up a workable camp in the valley.

“The leaders will have to be imprisoned,” the Legate answered, “but as they’re all noble, they’ll probably be placed under some kind of house arrest. In other words, I’m sure they’ll be treated as honored guests of the Marquis of Ironford rather than the prisoners that they are. The rest of the knights… we don’t really have to worry about. They’re more loyal to their own Lords than they are to Octavius, the Bull King, or the central government. With their Lords or their commanders in prison, they won’t be a problem.”

Leon frowned at that statement. He knew that if Trajan had ever been captured, he wouldn’t have just stayed quiet, but he supposed he could understand why someone else wouldn’t do anything reckless if they knew that the person they followed wasn’t going to be harmed. Still, it wasn’t like they actually had the Lords of these knights, most of the nobles that gathered their personal knights together to form the army he’d been fighting for the past week were relatives of landed nobles, not the landed nobles themselves. In other words, the knights and men-at-arms that made up the army could still fight if their commanders ordered them to try and release their captured family members.

It made Leon uneasy, but he decided to trust that the Legate knew what he was talking about. Besides, as the Legate said, the prisoners probably weren’t going to be mistreated, but that could certainly change if anyone tried to break one of their family members out of captivity.

“So… what, they’re just going to be held until the end of this little Taurus family dispute…?” Leon wondered aloud.

“No, Prince August will more than likely ransom them back to their families,” the Legate answered, his face twitching slightly from the urge to smile at Leon’s description of this civil war. “It wouldn’t do to alienate so many landed nobles by executing their family members, and building up some goodwill with them by treating these prisoners with respect could lead to some of those nobles switching sides to his cause. Holding the captured nobles would get him nothing, as their families would eventually lose patience if their requests for ransom were denied and start furnishing Octavius with their knights again. But, for now, we don’t have anything to worry about. These knights and men-at-arms that make up the majority of the army will return to the lands of their Lords, and we won’t have to worry about them for a while.”

Again, Leon couldn’t help but frown. Were it up to him, he’d probably be sorely tempted to simply execute them all and be done with it, but he could understand why that wouldn’t be the best idea. If he were honest with himself, he knew that he wouldn’t actually indulge that urge, but just letting so many knights go that only hours ago were mortal enemies still didn’t sit well with him.

“You don’t like the way we’re going through with this?” the Legate asked, picking up on Leon’s poorly-hidden displeasure.

“I can accept why we’re doing this, but it still doesn’t feel right,” Leon honestly answered.

“I get it, but these are nobles we’re dealing with, not professional soldiers,” the Legate said. “The rules are a little different. If this was another Legion, then we’d have to imprison the entire lot, but these are nobles and their followers. We only need to take the nobles captive, and so long as we’re civil about it, their retainers will abide by the surrender and leave.”

Leon shrugged. “If that’s the way we’re going to play, then I guess that’s it.”

The Legate chuckled and said, “Don’t forget that what happens here will be seen by everyone else in the Kingdom. If we don’t take prisoners and treat our captives with honor and respect, then the same cannot be expected in turn. Even worse, if we start winning a battle but our enemy knows we don’t take prisoners, then they will fight that much harder and make it much harder to win. We’d probably end up losing even more of our own people than we otherwise might. I mean, think about it for a moment; how hard would you fight if your back was against the wall compared to if you were losing and had a way out?”

“Mmm,” Leon mumbled as he contemplated the issue. The Legate was making quite a bit of sense, and these points weren’t ones that Leon had considered in a long time—arguably since Trajan had sent him to deal with smugglers almost two years ago.

“Think on it a bit more,” the Legate said with a jovial laugh. “By the way, I think it’s pretty certain that there won’t be any more of Octavius’ goons coming up this way, so you ought to be clear to return to Ironford or wherever Dame Minerva needs you. You did good here, Ursus, I don’t think we would’ve made it here in time without you doing what you did.”

“Thanks,” Leon said in response as pride swelled within his chest. All things considered, for only fifty casualties, he’d killed thousands of knights in Octavius’ army. That, in his opinion, was something to be proud of. “I’ll head back, then. What are you going to do?”

“I think I’ll stay here with my Legion and guard the southern valleys leading into the Eastern Territories until further notice,” the Legate said. “If any more of those corrupt and treasonous toads try coming up this way, I’ll lay them down at August’s feet bloody and broken.”

“I’ll be sure Dame Minerva knows your plans,” Leon replied. He then quickly said his goodbyes and gathered his remaining people together to return to Ironford.

—

It took only an hour or two for Leon and his party to make their way through the northeastern parts of the valley and return to the Iron Road. The terrain was rough, but it wasn’t far, relatively speaking, especially for mages of their caliber. One hundred and fifty knights, along with litters inscribed with air runes carrying the bodies of their fallen, emerged onto the road in good order, surprising a smallish force of about five hundred knights and men-at-arms of Ironford that had been waiting along the road.

“Hail!” their leader, a fifth-tier knight shouted as he ran forward. The rest of the knights behind him drew their weapons and, while they didn’t take strictly threatening postures, their body language made it clear that they were ready for a fight if that’s what Leon’s group was going to give them.

Leon made no aggressive moves, and neither did those who followed him. Still, they had a stone giant with them, and Lapis emerging from the trees almost made the knights on the road charge in surprise and fear. It was only the leader shouting at them to stay back that prevented any unnecessary violence.

“Sir Leon, I presume?” the leader asked as he closed with Leon, though Leon noted that, despite his orders for everyone to stay back, he was careful to keep an eye on Lapis.

“You would presume correctly,” Leon answered. “Who might you be?”

“I’m Karl, a knight in the service of the Marquis of Ironford. I was sent by His Lordship to aid you in holding off the forces of Prince Octavius!”

‘Doing a damn fine job of it, I see,’ Leon sarcastically thought to himself, silently taking notice of all the tents and signs of encampment that were between the road, the cliffs to the north, and the hills to the south.

“No need, the 7th Legion arrived in time. They’re now holding the southern valleys,” Leon said.

Karl almost reeled at the surprise, but the emotion was quickly replaced with glee on his face. “That’s wonderful news!” he shouted. “I must return to His Lordship and tell him of this… Oh, Sir Leon, I believe Dame Minerva would like to hear of this, as well!”

And with that, the knight ran back to his own unit. He didn’t stop to explain anything else, such as why his unit was just camping on the road, and neither did he ask Leon for any more details, such as the fate of the noble army Octavius had sent into the valley. He just ran away.

Leon shrugged, not interested in speaking with the knight. He figured the small force was just a detachment of reserves that had been meant to garrison Ironford against the oncoming armies and that the Marquis simply felt confident that he could spare the manpower. Leon could’ve definitely used these people a few days ago, but he wasn’t going to waste his time being bitter. There was still a battle going on, after all—or, at least, as far as he knew.

“Let’s go,” he murmured to those behind him and led them westward along the Iron Road. It would take hours to reach the mouth of the pass that Minerva and the rest were holding, so there was some quiet grumbling from those who had been looking forward to returning to civilization, but Leon paid it no mind. These were Trajan’s knights, and he knew that they would do their duty, especially when their peers were still holding the pass.

They made good time and reached their destination before the sun fell. The pass was still in their hands, though Leon didn’t really need to see it for himself to know that; if the pass had fallen, then he would’ve found Ironford under siege. At the very least, he would’ve heard about it at some point.

The pass had been fortified further in the week since the two Legions showed up in front of it, with caves built into the cliffs and numerous archer platforms along the cliff’s western faces. Many of the caves doubled as barracks and other necessary facilities, though Leon couldn’t imagine they were extensive enough to comfortably house the four thousand or so knights that were with Minerva, Roland, and Brimstone. The earthen ramparts that had been first built by Roland and Brimstone’s knights had also been expanded into a full-on thirty-foot-tall wall of stone bricks, complete with battlements and a handful of square towers.

Completing the fortifications was the castle on the cliffs just to the north of the pass. It had also been expanded upon, being enlarged enough to house at least five hundred knights and their attendants, and the edge of the cliff nearby had been fortified with battlements and machicolations to aid the archer platforms below.

The visuals of all this were impressive, but since it had all been created with earth magic and likely hadn’t been reinforced with too much enchantment—that part was the most time-consuming of all the steps needed to create a proper fortress—he couldn’t imagine that these fortifications were as durable as even those he’d seen at Fort 127, let alone the Bull’s Horns.

Upon approach, Leon’s party was stopped close to the mouth of the pass, with the knights on watch only allowing them into the camp once their identities had been verified, and even then, Leon and his handful of retainers were assigned an escort to lead them to the castle above while everyone else had to wait down below. By the time Leon was allowed into the camp, Minerva received word of their arrival and had already sent Roland and Brimstone summons to the castle to hear Leon’s report.

And that was where Leon found them, in the audience hall of the castle after being led through the surprisingly extensive cave network that had been built in the previous week and up onto the plateau—unfortunately, Lapis had to be left down below, as it was too large to fit into the caves, and Leon didn’t want to mess with the knights’ work by having the stone giant create its own way up. Lapis was, as always, quite gracious when Leon asked it to stay behind, though he thought he could detect some hint of regret in its rumbling, inhuman voice at the same time.

The castle was laid out quite simply, as the plateau was surprisingly flat at the top. The castle had essentially been expanded into a large square, with the old castle in the center and the new outer walls separated into four quadrants. There were a dozen towers along the walls, two to a side and one in each corner, though Leon didn’t have much time to give them much examination. He had a report to give, and he was also quite eager to hear about how well the battle here had been going.